The Girl in Room 20

Movies aimed at black audiences in the 1940s often had white producers and directors, though the casts were black. But this one was directed by and co-stars the gifted Spencer Williams, who would in a few years become a national tv star as Andy on "Amos n Andy." Like other black-targeted films of the era, this one's super-low-budget (the sets look like cardboard), with a simplistic story (nice country girl with a good voice comes to NYC and falls in with city slickers), an almost surreally pieced-together musical score, and few professional actors besides Williams himself, who's very good as a kindly cabbie who looks after the girl. And, like a lot of black films from the era, it somehow triumphs over those shortcomings, and is a charmer. Sadly, the DVD version I've seen was made from a print badly mauled by time, with an audio track that's sometimes indecipherable.

Continuing to review films featuring African-Americans in chronological order for Black History Month, we're now at 1946 when director/actor Spencer Williams has put out another of his "race movies" for a black audience in segregated area theatres. Here, he plays a kindly cab driver named Joe Phillips who helps a naive country girl-and aspiring singer-named Daisy Mae Walker (Geraldine Brock) avoid the more sleazy types in New York City in order to be friends with the right show business types and living in the most friendly, if a little cheap, hotel. Despite that, there's still some unsavory types that manage to snag her though when her boyfriend, Dunbar Hamilton (R. Jore), from back home comes over, things threaten to take a violent turn...Ms. Brock's singing voice is very pleasant whether singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" (a song ironically used to parody the typical Negro song in films like Blazing Saddles and Revenge of the Nerds) or another song-"Danny Boy"-whose melody I recognized but not the lyrics. And after just seeing Williams portray a sleazy bar owner in his Go Down, Death!, it was a nice change of pace watching him here as the nicest character here. The film itself has an amateurish feel throughout especially during a fight scene when-after seeing the two men struggle-the only way you'd know how rough things are is by hearing the loud sound effects while the camera is on Williams or Ms. Brock reacting. Still, the story is good despite the contrivance of the end scene and this is a pleasant enough viewing experience for me. So on that note, I recommend The Girl in Room 20. P.S. One of the players here is one Myra D. Hemmings who's a mentor of Ms. Brock and had previously appeared in the aforementioned Go Down, Death! And the film on the DVD disc I played began with an intro narrated by Ossie Davis about The Tyler-Texas Black Film Collection which had several once-lost "race movies" from the '30s and '40s discovered in an abandoned warehouse there one night in August 1983 by a Dr. Gene Wiken Jones, a Southern Methodist University Professor and Director of Southwest Film Video Archives.

Girl in Room 20 (1946)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Spencer Williams' directed this drama with an all black cast. A country girl (Geraldine Brock) moves to the big city with dreams of becoming a famous singer. Once in the big city she's befriended by a cab driver (Williams) but also runs in with the wrong crowd who hope to take advantage of her. Despite the extremely low budget, director Williams is able to tell a pretty good story, although it's over the top happy ending comes off very forced. Williams gives the best performance in the film but Brock does a fine job as well and her singing is quite nice.